Overhead for the services is crushing their budgets, military leaders say.

Kenneth Weene's insight:

The real kick in this story comes at the end when we realize that some of those overhead costs are mandates from congress and have no place in the budget. Of course, from my point of view, the easy thing to do is cut back on the size of the military. One more observation, we have military families on food stamps and in need so it sure isn't the average guy who's breaking the bank. Perhaps we can also cut back on the number of brass.

Even before U.S. Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) invited Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak before Congress, Democrats, unlike Republicans and Independents, were…

Kenneth Weene's insight:

As a kid, I brought my nickles and dimes to Sunday school to help plant trees in Israel. The Israel I supported was probably never a real place, a place of dancing, kibbutz idealism, and a welcoming spirit for the dispossessed of the world. Today, I would more gladly send my contributions to help the Palestinians, a people in real need. Sadly, they are poorly served by the world and by their own political leadership. But one thing has remained simple and (IMHO) realistic from those childhood days until now, it it the crucial role of Iran as a balance in the Middle East. The U.S. in its search for hegemony in the world has time and again refused to recognize the importance and especially the independence of regional powers, indeed even the legitimate interests of other world powers. The real issue cannot be what Israel wants but finding a common ground with Iran. Alliance is a better form of peace than a balance of power can ever be.

The icy winter has slowed commerce in normally bustling New Bedford, Mass., the nation’s top commercial fishing port.

Kenneth Weene's insight:

Brrrr! I feel for the people of New England. Having grown up in Massachusetts and Maine, I am glad that I now live in sunny Arizona. Is this global climate change or a freak winter? While I am a strong believer in net global energy absorption (yeah, human caused long-term climate changing), but as a poet, this seems more like Mother Nature is just out to get those poor folks.

Congressional Republicans are proposing changes to CHIP that could adversely affect over a million youngsters and end up costing the states.

Kenneth Weene's insight:

Still people will say there is no difference between the two parties. How can a party that is so determined to stop abortions because of the right of innocent children to life but so consistently indifferent to the well-being of children who are alive. Meanwhile, how much money did the Republicans give to the wealthiest Americans this last year (often against Democratic opposition)? Their values just don't cut it for me.

Unbeknown to state officials, oil producers in Kern County have been disposing of chemical-laden wastewater in hundreds of unlined trenches in the ground without proper permits, according to an inventory that regional water officials completed this week.

Kenneth Weene's insight:

Even the drunks at the Dew Drop know you have to incredibly stupid to foul your own nest.

President Obama gave this outspoken, brave soldier the Medal of Honor. The Army dug through his trash and bothered his girlfriend.

Kenneth Weene's insight:

There is something so wrong with the need of every branch of government to protect itself from any scrutiny. Once the Army was caught doing wrong by this hero, it backed down and ran away; but will anybody actually question why they were trying to find dirt on him? Of course not. It was business as usual.

Forget the hearts and minds business, if you can win the tushes of a country, you can sit tall. Venezuela needs toilet paper, China needs toilet seats, and we can wonder what Iran might like. Anybody for some Dran-O?

It was a story that mystified many non-Turks. On the night of Feb. 21, Turkey sent a military convoy into Syria to rescue 38 of its soldiers…

Kenneth Weene's insight:

Once again we see how muddled the Middle East is and always has been. To think this particular military operation has its roots in a deal stuck between the Turkish government and France in 1921. Even stranger is that the figure involved goes back to the beginnings of the Ottoman Empire.in the thirteenth century. And it is likely that the Kurds and Turks cooperated; now that is even stranger.

For reasons unknown, Florida police tasered an elderly man who was surrendering and hand his hands up. The scene was captured by ...

Kenneth Weene's insight:

I have no idea what this man may have done, but clearly the police are getting out of hand. Their level of violence makes them more dangerous than street gangs and drug cartels. Worse, there is no civilian oversight and the justice system almost never questions the actions of any police.

If there is one goal of ISIS that is clear it is to create the greatest possible rift between Islam and other faiths. While killing peaceful Christians and Jews totally at odds with the teachings of The Prophet, this is their strategy. If we Westerners fall into their trap, we will condemn Islam and strengthen ISIS's claims that there needs to be a new caliphate. Our best strategy continues to be to involve the Muslim countries in the region and to keep this a battle between a criminal cult within Islam and legitimate Muslim leaders. Hence, we must encourage Iranian and Saudi involvement, one major Shia country and the other Sunni. Perhaps ISIS will help bridge the gap between those two branches of Islam. Which, of course, will mean other problems for Israel and for the West.

St. Louis has ordered the New Life Evangelistic Center, a shelter known for taking in just about anyone, to cut its intake drastically after complaints of its impact on a revitalized district.

Kenneth Weene's insight:

Not only do we have the poor with us always, but also we will always have disagreement about how to best help them. There are those who rightly want to give immediate hands-on and yes handout assistance, food and shelter. There are those who rightly want to give longer-term and probably bureaucratize assistance including housing and job training. And there are some whose inability to care for themselves do to mental and/or physical impairment, and for them we need other long-term care such as placement in facilities—not prisons. All of these approaches are valid and worthy. What upsets me here is the motivations: wanting poor and homeless people so you can feel good about your religion? wanting to develop bureaucratic solutions so you can make money? How about doing these things because they are quite simply right?

The inside, untold story of CIA's efforts to mislead Congress -- and the people -- about torture will horrify you

Kenneth Weene's insight:

For years I have been saying that the Military-Industrial-ESPIONAGE community are the real enemies of the American people and of our form of government. This is just another excellent essay supporting that point of view.

At least four studies in recent years have left some wondering about how much effort is going to real fixes.

Kenneth Weene's insight:

The creation of the Department of Homeland Security was one of the many mistakes during the Bush Administration. Cobbled together agencies, unclear congressional lines of oversight, and an overall task that is set with paranoia instead of positive purpose: just a few of the obvious underlying problems. If it were up to me, I'd scrap it and start over; the minute the Bush-Cheney administration began its response to 9/11 the terrorists had won a major battle.

I moved to Washington, D.C., a generation ago. It was 1993, and I had come to town to join Bill Clinton’s administration, or, as it…

Kenneth Weene's insight:

With many of us (including moi) salivating in anticipation of the new season of "House of Cards," I have to share this Washington Insider's grading of ten current TV shows about DC. Yes, including HofC. Enjoy!

God forbid that children should learn about the Gog-given gift of their sexuality except from parents, who often don't discuss sex and whose attitudes of control are often at total odds with the adolescent child's impulses. I have two questions: Do American adults have any idea of how destructive the conservative position on sex education actually is? If they do, why do they keep voting these self-righteous idiots into office? Now if you want to know how to talk with kids about sex, you might listen to the podcast of this past Thursday's It Matters Radio when my guest was the outstanding sex educator, Al Vernacchio.

Former Arizona county sheriff Richard Mack, a fierce opponent of Obamacare and a leader in the "constitutional sheriff" movement, is struggling to pay his medical bills after he and his wife each faced serious illnesses. The former sheriff and his wife do not have health insurance and started a GoFundMe campaign to solicit donations from family and friends to cover the costs of their medical care.

"Because they are self-employed, they have no medical insurance and are in desperate need of our a

Kenneth Weene's insight:

Sounds like he faces the kind of medical expense caused bankruptcy that Mr. Obama was trying to end. I do hope he isn't going to apply for disability and get on Medicare that way or ask for Medicaid. We wouldn't want this icon of the far right mentality to change. Maybe Clive Bundy will sell a few of his cows to help the guy.

A car collector and his wife experienced a nightmare after incompetent police deprived this innocent couple of their freedom.

Kenneth Weene's insight:

That will teach these nice people to take a drive. What are the chances that anyone in the police department will learn anything from this incredible mistake? What are the chances that the cops involved will try to make up a charge to justify the stop and their overreaction? Makes me want to vomit.

He is channeling that great old song so well sung by Theodore Bikel, "I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger." He was with Adam when he ate the apple, with Jesus on the Cross, stormed the beaches on D-Day, walked on the moon, and of course will be there for the second coming. Such is the work of being an entertainer posing as a reporter and not doing it on Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show, or (Oh, yeah, the one he most aspires to) Laugh In.

At a town hall meeting in his district in Georgia last week, Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk claimed that he and his wife decided against vaccinating their “very healthy” children and sai

Kenneth Weene's insight:

I do not wish these children any harm, but a part of me kind of does. Wouldn't it be wonderful if they went to one of those "Biblical" amusement parks and contracted a serious illness. Seems only fitting. Then they might come in contact with some of their home-schooled friends who are also un-immunized, infect them, and their parents could sue this paragon of self-righteousness. Yep, that would help convince me there is a righteous god.

Rep. Christy Perry of Idaho says its a violation of parents' rights to obligate them to treat their sick children

Kenneth Weene's insight:

Herein an example of the madness that is the Christian right. Abortion is always wrong because the child has a right to life; but if the child is ill, the parents have the religious right to refuse medical care and let the kid die. Whacko!

Lutz Bachmann, who was reinstated through a secret ballot, led several thousand people on a peaceful march through the eastern city of Dresden.

Kenneth Weene's insight:

It is no surprise that haters support a hater. Obviously and sadly, the German people don't remember the horror their capacity for feeling superior and hateful wreaked on the world in the mid-twentieth century.

While law enforcement may protest that there is need for such sophisticate tools, those devices in fact make us all inmates for their observation and control. And what is the justification? A failed war on drugs? A misdirected War on Terror? Meanwhile the real thieves armed with fancy lawyers, tax loopholes, and off-shore bank accounts are looting the country.

About 800,000 HealthCare.gov customers got the wrong tax information from the government, the Obama administration disclosed Friday, and officials are asking those affected to delay filing their 2014 returns.

Kenneth Weene's insight:

The real woe behind Obamacare and its website is that like way to many things done by the U.S. government, there was too much concern about corporations and maintaining their position instead of meeting the real needs of the country. While the Affordable Care Act is much better than the situation before its passage, we need a simpler system of universal healthcare. If the government provided basic healthcare and then allowed the purchase of additional coverage, such as for private rooms versus double, prime prevention including gym memberships versus basic preventative care, and simply gave healthcare the same priority we give say building a new bomber that won't even do its job properly, it would make lots more sense.

Katherine Hoover was five months pregnant when a man shot and killed her—and now a Florida prosecutor is refusing to press charges.

Kenneth Weene's insight:

The stupidity of the American gun culture once again on display. Do you honestly believe the founding fathers intended idiots like this man to be doing gun tricks? Do you honestly believe that somebody on multiple meds that alter judgment and perception should be showing off his weapons? Did he commit a crime? Nope, but our gun culture certainly did.

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